Sermon Tone Analysis

Recap of Series:

Week 1 “Don’t miss the journey for the Destination” (2 Cor.

5:17)

Week 2 “The Old Testament opens the window for us to understanding the New.” (Matthew 5:17)

Week 3 “We turn the pages of scripture to know truth from error.” ( 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Week 4 “When we hear it through the spirit we place our life under His knife.”

(Hebrews 4:12)

Today we are going to consider how turning the pages of scripture helps us to understand the will of God for our lives.

The text we come to today in Hebrew culture was called the Shema.

Shema, in the simplest terms, means 'to hear' or ‘listen’.

The Hebrew word pronunciation sounds more like “sh'-mah”.

But it also means to obey and take action.

So, to hear God is to obey God—and to obey God is to hear God.

Deuteronomy: One Nation under God (Listen, Love, Live (6:4–9))

This section is the heart of the entire chapter.

In 6:4 Moses utters one of the most important revelations of God’s identity.

So important is this verse that when certain medieval Hebrew scribes copied it, they made two individual letters larger than all the other letters in the verse.

These two letters (ʿayin and dāleth) together form the Hebrew word ʿēd, which means ‘testimony’ or ‘stipulation’.

So, as medieval readers came to this verse in Hebrew, there was a big visual reminder to them that they were reading the Hebrew Bible’s central testimony about God.

This revelation was the basic framework for understanding God and living life under the covenant.

Big Idea: This is one of the most Hopeless and Hopeful commandments in Scripture.

The greatest commandment is one of the most hopeless and hopeful commandments in scripture.

For those who do not know Christ this is the impossible command, however, for those who know Him it is one of the most hopeful commandments as we are being changed from one degree of glory to another.

I have never once kept even the first clause of the foremost commandment: “You shall love the Lord our God will all your heart.”

Even at the very best moments of my life, where my heart and affections for him are at their strongest they are still polluted with the indwelling sin of selfishness.

And I am rarely at my highest and strongest.

Note: Notice the language is with “all” my heart, and with “all” my soul,” and will “all my mind.”

If this command was not enough Jesus adds to it in the N.T. when he declares that the second is like it, which, is to love your neighbor as yourself.

We all have to repent daily for someway that we have put ourselves before other people.

Outside of Christ, we are only wretched.

The two greatest commandments reveal just how wretched we are.

But in Christ, united to him, we are completely forgiven of our constant failure to keep them and his constant and perfect keeping of them is credited to us.

And one day we will be freed from all sinning, we too will have the joy of keeping them constantly perfectly just as Christ does.

One day we will know the thrill of loving God with our entire being and the amazing, pure freedom of loving others as ourselves.

The Benefits of Ignoring Notifications

How many times do you check Twitter?

What about Facebook?

Don't forget Instagram.

Like Pavlov's dog we are being trained with beeps, buzzes, and indicator notices on our phones.

A Harvard Business Review article points to the value in delayed gratification, a concept that might seem foreign to many of us.

Ed Batista from the Stanford Graduate School of Business writes, "Not only are we constantly interrupted by alerts, alarms, beeps, and buzzes that tell us some new information has arrived, we constantly interrupt ourselves to seek out new information."

But Batista also warns that external forces want to distract us.

He claims that "trillion-dollar industries are dedicating some of their brightest minds and untold resources to come up with newer and better ways" to grab your attention and divert it to something else.

While our attention many times is directed towards things that have little bearing on our lives, Moses seeks to grab the attention of the nation of Israel.

1. Listening reminds us that there is only one God above all others.

“Hear oh Israel, the Lord your God is one”

On the first hearing of this introduction to the greatest commandment, it would appear this is merely a declaration of the Godhead, which is the Father, Son, and Spirit as the three in one.

Which you would be partially correct in that assumption.

The God of Israel is not a pantheon of gods, but one.

He was therefore, to be the sole object of Israel’s faith and obedience.

The text begins by addressing the nation of Israel as a singular entity: “Listen, Oh Israel, Moses does not call upon Israel to look at something, for God did not show himself at Israel, but rather made himself heard.

Moses does not invite Israel to imagine something about God.

This does not assume that the law does not lead us to logical deductions.

The overriding factor of this command is that Israel is Yahweh’s own personal revelation of Himself to the world.

Jesus is the only one who could perfectly fulfill the greatest commandment here on earth.

This therefore prevents Israel from several things:

presenting a God of their own making or imagination.

this is not a call to feel something mystical or magical about God.

Instead God is calling Israel to Listen.

It is also a call or declaration of allegiance to the one God.

People are called upon to listen attentively to God’s word, to his Son and also to words of wisdom.

Christians must not only listen to God’s word but also put it into practice.

Those who refuse to listen to God’s word or to correction are condemned.

Remember at this point in scripture people did not approach God themselves but relied on Moses and the later prophets to be the mouth piece of God as he brought the 10 commandments to the people in Deuteronomy chapter 5.

We read in Deuteronomy 5:1 that the people are summoned to hear, learn, and do what God has commanded.

This opening call is answering the question that has plagued fallen humanity since the garden.

WHO REALLY IS GOD?

As we gave the statistics at the beginning of this study that tell us that 9 in 10 Americans believe in a higher power, however, only a slim majority believe in God as described in scripture.

Over half do not believe in original sin, over half believe that God changes, over half believe that there is more than one way to the kingdom of God.

Many believe in some kind of higher power, however, to claim in the one God of the Bible above all other claims to a higher power is not acceptable.

When people say they believe in God, what are they really claiming?

We cannot assume today that people are making the claim of “The Lord our God, the Lord is one,” as described by Moses in this text.

*Yaweh is the sole object of our Worship, Allegiance, and Affection

We live in a pluralistic society with a diverse group of people who believe all kinds of different things and tolerate each other’s beliefs even when they do not match their own.

How can we live faithfully in a society that is becoming increasingly hostel or intolerant towards Christians.

(The call scripture is giving sets us apart in a world of compromise)

How can you claim to have the only truth?

How can you claim to serve the only God?

The world today is highly individualized and is increasingly becoming more intolerant.

This sort of society says that we must live in a society where every individual is equally respected in every situation.

Culture today places the God of the Bible as a God among many God’s in the marketplace of the world.

The word “monotheism” comes from two words, “mono” meaning “single” and “theism” meaning “belief in God.”

Specifically, monotheism is the belief in one true God who is the only creator, sustainer, and judge of all creation.

Monotheism differs from “henotheism,” which is the belief in multiple gods with one supreme God over all.

It is also opposed to polytheism, which is the belief in the existence of more than one god.

Obviously, for most people it wouldn’t suffice to say there is only one God because that’s what the Bible tells us.

Without God there is no way to prove that the Bible is His word in the first place.

We could go straight to Jesus Christ and His ministry at least approved by God by His miraculous birth, life, and the miracle of the resurrection.

God cannot lie or be deceived; therefore, what Jesus believed and taught must be true.

Therefore, monotheism which Jesus taught and believed must be true.

Why is the Doctrine of One God so Important for our Faith?

1.

If there were more than one God, the universe would be in disorder because of multiple creators and authorities, but it is not in disorder; therefore, there must be one God.

2. Since God is a completely perfect being, there cannot be a second God, for they would have to differ in some way, and to differ from complete perfection is to be less than perfect and not be God.

3. Since God is infinite in His existence, He cannot have parts (for parts cannot be added to reach infinity).

If God’s existence is not just a part of Him (which it is for all things which can have existence or not), then He must have infinite existence.

Therefore, there cannot be two infinite beings, for one would have to differ from the other.

The authority of the Bible rests on the God of this book being the only God ultimate in His authority and power.

Without the one God it leaves room for us to make a God of our own making to be what we want Him to be.

All three persons which make up the Godhead were present at creation, they were present at Jesus Baptism, they were present at the cross, and they will be present when He returns in all of His Glory.

2. Loving reminds us that there is only one Love above all others.

Half-Hearted Happiness